How to achieve this...

[GrahamS]

Could be a Matt Klowskowski sunflare effect preset in Lightroom or his sunflare portrait preset, used without any direct sun in the image. http://lightroomkillertips.com/?p=4412

[ajohnw]

I suspect that the posterisation on the car in the first image is a clue. It might even be slight inverse tone mapping finished by adding blur at the final size.

I'm on a laptop in west wales at the moment but don't think the screen on it is that bad.

John
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[semo]

VSCO - Dave Hill

Presets used on Fiat project:

Fuji Superia 400 -
Fuji FP - 100c Negative ++

[Texas Dave]

I don't think there's any real "quick" fix, albeit it took me about a minute in photoshop. Desat, duped a layered and hammered it with a surface blur, reduced the opacity and changed the layer to soft light and then adjusted the curves a couple of times to get the desired color. Gamma down the high lights helps give the vintage, aged look.

[Richard Lundberg]

What is it that uploading images to this forum does to make everything look soft?

[Colin Southern]

What is it that uploading images to this forum does to make everything look soft?

Nothing.

99%+ images aren't uploaded to CiC; they're hosted on the webserver of the posters choosing (eg Facebook, Pbase, Flickr etc). The link that's inserted simply tells the viewer's browser to display the linked image, so the images don't come anywhere near CiC.

The ONLY exception is where images are uploaded here as attachments; something that's pretty uncommon - not encouraged - and will probably be discontinued shortly. You don't have any of these.

If any softness is apparent, it's probably due to the viewer not viewing then at 100%, meaning their browser of choice will be down-sampling them on the fly for display.

[rpcrowe]

If you have a spare 30-35 years to spend, I can tell you how I achieved this look (quite unintentionally).

I have some color prints I made about 35 years ago that look very much like this after being stored in non-archival quality "photo-protector" pages. I had not intended for this to happen and certainly did not have control over the amount of fading...

However, I doubt if many of us have that much time to devote to a fad (not fab) look...

So maybe these Photoshop actions come close...
http://www.22pixels.com/download/fad...toshop_actions

[EDGE1]

Semo answered my question perfectly. Thanks! I'll be looking into those filters this weekend, pricey, but could be nice.

I'm not sure you quite captured the effect I was looking for Texas Dave, but thanks for sharing!

I think I still have a few years left in me Richard, so I could for that.. I tried the link you shared btw, but it appears to be down.

From what I've read here and found on the net, I think I've managed to recreate the look I was going for (without the need for adding the VCSO film pack). Colin suggested adding a blur of around 15px with a transparency of something like 20-30px, which worked far better than I had initially thought. I almost scrapped the idea before even giving it a chance, so thanks for that Colin! There's a lot to be leaned by searching the net for "Nashville effect in Photoshop" or something like "Sunflare effect" (thanks Graham). A combination of these tutorials, this forum and my own vision of what I was trying to achieve did the trick.

Thanks again for answering my question!
- Rob

[ajohnw]

The other way posterisation can occur is via curves adjustments. I tried a quick search for gimp film curves. There will be others for other packages. Some for all packages are here

http://www.prime-junta.net/pont/How_...and_films.html

There is also a gimp tutorial on constructing your own - even poaching them after a fashion

http://blog.patdavid.net/2012/07/get...ore-color.html

There is also a good video summary

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVfIuYV5Ghs&hd=1

I'm pretty sure PS could do this and a number of other packages as well. The GIMP does have an advantage though. It uses dockable windows so the curves one can be as large as needed making accurate adjustments easier.

This one is interesting too but off topic

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgJ2VvI-V18

John
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[shreds]

There are numerous ways of achieving this effect, including with Nik/Google plug ins. DX0 Film pack is good at doing this sort of retro thing too, if it is your cup of tea.

http://www.dxo.com/intl/photography/dxo-filmpack

http://www.dxo.com/intl/photography/...ble-film-looks

Certainly not suitable for everything, but with the right subject matter….

[ajohnw]

True people can buy their way into various things but that isn't likely to come up with anything unique or aid understanding.

I posted the links because I feel that something along the same lines has been applied to the images. For instance contrast can be flattened by simply dragging down the highlight end of the tone curve and then dragging up the low light end. Or for an overdone washed out look this sort of thing can be applied.



Not a good image for me to work on. Seems to be aRGB and the ladies shoulder is blown.

John
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[Bobobird]

Tried something with birds (feathered variety).

Alternate process

[rpcrowe]

I played with various filter combinations in Perfect Photo Suite, Perfect Effects and came up with these renditions.

Once I arrived at a combination that I liked, I could save it as a favorite and be able to apply it with a single click to any image.







There are literally thousands of filter combinations I could use. I am pretty sure that with enough playing around, I could arrive at the correct combination...

[pasusan]

Hi Rob - I've been fooling around with my NIK software for the last few months, so I had to give this one a try (thanks for the opportunity). I used Color Efex Pro... Bleach Bypass on her wrap and the edge of the purse, then Dynamic Skin Softening, then Classical Soft Focus on the sky, grass, mountains, and water (not her or the concrete). Each preset I moved the sliders around a bit. I hope you like it - my husband does.

[aRobot]

I've noticed more and more photographers employing this style. I actually really like this look. Much like you, I couldn't even really describe it to people and/or google. This forum was as close to a tutorial as I've been able to find on the internet. Anyways, using a few of Dave Hill's photographs, I tried to "reverse engineer" the post processing these photographers must do.

So I was having a lot of trouble with the photo that you were trying to use. The post processing already done to the photo was too difficult to "undo" then apply a completely different style to. However, I used another one of Dave's photos and had a good amount of success replicating the style.

Here is the Original.





Here is my attempt.







The most observable feature is the "faded" nature of the style. It definitely has a lower contrast, but looking at the photos histograms offered a more detailed explanation.






Notice the gap at the beginning of the dark values. This is what's causing the distinct, faded look. So if you just try to desaturate the photo or lower the contrast, it's not going to look right. Instead, using curves, try pushing the blacks a little lighter, so to create the gap. You can probably do this a number of ways, but I prefer the method used below. I raise the initial black value, then add another node that keeps the rest of the values on their original "diagonal" line.






This is the most important feature of these photos. Anything additional is purely preference. For my photo, the contrast was still a little high (probably because of his post processing), so I just lowered the Contrast value by about -10. Then lowered the Brightness so that it didn't ruin the darks that I just edited.


The final step is color grading. It's hard to give a step-by-step guide for this, but as a rule of thumb:

*Don't apply anything to the shadows, otherwise it will ruin "the fade" you created in the first step.
*Add a lot of yellow to the highlights (not pure yellow, just a general sort of tan yellow).
*Add blue or bluish purple to the mid tones.
*Mess around with it until you have something you like.

Well, that was my attempt at it. Hope this helps someone.

[chauncey]

Wow...really old thread. FWIW...PS CC in their "Color Lookup" Adjustment Layer has a slew of various
filters that you can apply for a big variety of "looks". Check it out!

[ajohnw]

I suspect it's a variation on the Orton effect.

Original




Result




Formed from 2 layers

Botton




Top in multiply mode




There are numerous ways of obtaining the Orton effect on the web but I suspect this one relates to the original.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orton_%28photography%29


John
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[Black Pearl]

The last time the OP visited the forum was Jan this year - unlikely that resurrection this thread will help them.

[ajohnw]

There is a lot to play with but I suspect Orton is on the right track. How much blur for instance. Brightness can be messed with after the layers are created. I tried to maintain the same tone levels as the original



John
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[ajohnw]

The last time the OP visited the forum was Jan this year - unlikely that resurrection this thread will help them.

True but it is an interesting one and I doubt that the photographer mentioned uses some easily available plug in that some one can use in 5mins otherwise anybody could get the effect he may be famed for. Assuming the photographer is a NAME of course.

John
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